Danny Trejo Net Worth & Wife | Tattoo

What is Danny Trejo’s net worth? Who is Danny Trejo’s ex-wife?

Introduction

Danny Trejo is an American actor who has had memorable roles in a dizzying array of television shows and films, the “Spy Kids” film franchise, ”Desperado,” ”Breaking Bad,” ”Heat,” and ”Sons of Anarchy.”

Biography

He was born on May 16, 1944, in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, USA, as Dan Trejo.

Trejo was raised in Pacoima, a low-income, dirt-road Mexican-American neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Danny became a heroin addict at the age of 12.

Throughout the 60s, Danny was in and out of jail.

”There’s two kinds of people in prison: there’s predator, and there’s prey,” Trejo told CBS News in November 2019. He added: ”And you have to decide every day, ‘What am I gonna be?’ If it’s prey, then I give up. If it’s predator, then I’m gonna kill somebody.”

While serving time in San Quentin, Trejo won the welterweight and lightweight boxing titles.

”Prison is all about status,” the actor said. ”If you’re boxing, people are betting on you, so you automatically have a status.”

His final stay began in 1965 after he sold four ounces of heroin to an undercover federal agent.

After he was out of the penitentiary, he became a drug counselor.

In 1985, Trejo made his acting debut by playing a boxer in the film ”Runaway Train,” alongside John P. Ryan, Rebecca De Mornay, Eric Roberts, and Jon Voight.

Money on that set? $320 a day. Before Hollywood called, he worked as a drug counselor, and he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 that he was “making maybe $190, $220 a week before taxes.”

In 1987, Danny appeared in four movies – ”Bulletproof,” ”Penitentiary III,” ”The Hidden,” and ”Death Wish 4: The Crackdown.”

In 1995, Trejo portrayed ”Navajas” in Desperado.

In 1998 and 1999, Danny appeared in two episodes of ”Walker, Texas Ranger” as José Rodriguez.

In 2008, he performed as a Mexican bartender in ”The Young and the Restless.”

Machete

In “Spy Kids” (2001), Robert Rodriguez cast him as Isador “Machete” Cortez, an inventor uncle who supplies spy kit to his niece and nephew, and six years later, for “Grindhouse” (2007), the pair shot a fake trailer for a Machete movie that existed only as a joke between double features (two minutes of pure B-movie mayhem, and I have watched it more times than I will admit here).

People wanted it real.

“Machete” came out in 2010 with Trejo as lead, and “Machete Kills” followed in 2013.

How did it feel? He told CBS in 2021:

“I almost broke into the tears the first Halloween after Machete.”

Kids knocked at his door that night in Machete costumes, he said, and they were Mexican kids.

In March 2012, Trejo was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in Austin, Texas.

In 2013, Danny starred in Chavez Cage of Glory, The Contractor, and Phineas and Ferb.

In 2019, the documentary ”Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo” was released. It tells the story of how Danny became the unlikeliest of Hollywood character actors.

”I think what we did with this film is give people hope, and if you haven’t been to jail, it just shows you that anything is possible,” Trejo told SI.com.

In April 2020, Danny penned the book – ”Trejo’s Tacos: Recipes and Stories from L.A.: A Cookbook.” In the book, Trejo presents 75 recipes for cantina favorites like pillowy-sweet cinnamon-sugar lowrider donuts, vegan cauliflower tacos, and succulent carnitas.

A memoir with Donal Logue, 2021

Atria Books published “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood” in July 2021, in English and Spanish editions on one day. Co-author is actor Donal Logue, a friend since “Reindeer Games” in 2000.

Childhood fills many pages. His father, Dionisio “Dan” Trejo (1922-1981), was a construction worker and, by his son’s account, violent at home. One line from the book:

“I’d acted to survive my childhood.

Did writing it change him? “[…] I have been the most relaxed I’ve ever been,” he told the Los Angeles Daily News in July 2021.

To USA Today he compared Hollywood with the place he was raised: “[…] In the Valley, they give you a mural.”

In 2021, he was on the TV series ”The Masked Singer” as the Raccoon. He also appeared on The Casagrandes, My American Family, and Donny’s Bar Mitzvah.

Wife

He has been married and divorced four times.

From 1962 to 1965, Trejo was married to his first wife, Laura.

In 1971, he married Debbie Schipek. They divorced four years later.

From 1975 to 1978, Danny was married to Joanne Discuillo.

On December 12, 1997, Danny Trejo married Debbie Shreve.

The couple divorced in 2009.

Between marriages he had two long relationships: with Diana Walton from 1978 to 1983, and with Maeve Crommie from 1986 to 1997.

Three children came from those years.

His son Danny was born in 1981 to Trejo and Walton, and Gilbert (1988) and Danielle (1990) were born to Trejo and Crommie.

Height

5′ 5¾” (1.67 m)

Quotes

”When you talk to kids, you have to get their attention.”

”Acting is just a job. I’m exactly the same as that lady bringing us coffee, and I have to remember that.”

”I’ve always tried to eat good. I beat cancer, hepatitis C, and brain surgery-it’s all about diet and attitude.”

”When people clap for me, I say, don’t clap for me, clap for what God has done.”

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Tattoos

Trejo has a ”Mexican Cowgirl” tattoo on his chest. He got this tattoo during his stint in prison. He said in the documentary Tattoo Nation about this tattoo: ”Two and a half years, three penitentiaries, and it’s the most famous tattoo in the world.”

On the right side of his chest, there is a tattoo with the name – ”Debbie” and ”Danielle” on the left side of the chest.

On his right arm, there is a tattoo of a rose bush. A Peacock tattoo is found on the inside of Danny’s left arm.

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Danny Trejo – Net Worth

So, how much is Danny Trejo worth? Trejo earned most of his wealth from performing in more than 465 movies and television series, including – Big City Greens, American Gods, Remnants of the Fallen, Paragon: The Shadow Wars, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, The Flash, The Margarita Man, The Outsider, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and All About the Money. Therefore, American actor Danny Trejo has an estimated net worth of $500,000.

Danny lent his voice to many video games, including – Guns of Boom, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Fallout: New Vegas.

He owns a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles called – ”Trejos Tacos.”

”The best taco in the world right now, and I challenge anybody, is the carnitas tacos guacamole at Trejo’s Cantina,” Danny said in an interview with Bon Appetit in February 2020. He went on to say: ”I’m telling you, man. It’s so tender. We got secret ninja sauce that nobody knows.”

His empire also includes Trejo’s Cerveza, Trejo’s Cantina, Trejo’s Tacos, and Trejo’s Donuts.

The actor also makes money from selling copies of his book, ”Recipes and Stories from L.A.: A Cookbook.”

Danny appeared in a television commercial for Snickers that aired during Super Bowl XLIX.

In 2023, he filed for Chapter 11. In his petition, Trejo listed liabilities totaling $3.6 million and assets worth $2.2 million. Most of this debt stemmed from back taxes.

Lawyer Monthly reported in February 2025 that installments of about $101,000 a quarter run from October 2023 to January 2028, and his lawyer told court that Trejo “has paid $634,155 in pre-Petition tax obligations.”

In 2014, the actor sold his LA house to pay off $400,000 in tax debt.

His main home, in Mission Hills, cost $550,000 in 2012 and was valued above $1 million in bankruptcy papers..

Year	Payday or deal	Amount
Before 1985	Drug counselor weekly pay	$190 to $220 a week
1985	“Runaway Train” day rate	$320 a day
2012	Mission Hills home purchase	$550,000
2022	London crowdfund target	£1m
2023	IRS back taxes claimed	About $2.4 million
2023	California tax board claim	About $650,000
2023	Liabilities in petition	$3.6 million
2023 to 2028	Quarterly plan installments	About $101,000 each
Reported 2025	Arleta house sale	$828,000
Reported 2025	Pre-petition taxes paid	$634,155

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